The European Space Agency project Satellite Monitoring of Ash and Sulphur Dioxide for the mitigation of Aviation
Hazards, was introduced after the eruption of the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull in the spring of 2010
to facilitate the development of an optimal EndtoEnd
System for Volcanic Ash Plume Monitoring and Prediction.
The Eyjafjallajökull plume drifted towards Europe and caused major disruptions of European air traffic for
several weeks affecting the everyday life of millions of people. The limitations in volcanic plume monitoring and
prediction capabilities gave birth to this observational system which is based on comprehensive satellitederived
ash plume and sulphur dioxide [SO2] level estimates, as well as a widespread validation using supplementary
satellite, aircraft and groundbased
measurements. Intercomparison
of the volcanic total SO2 column and
plume height observed by GOME2/
MetopA
and IASI/MetopA
are shown before, during and after the Eyjafjallajökull
2010 eruptions as well as for the 2011 Grímsvötn eruption. Colocated
groundbased
Brewer Spectrophotometer
data extracted from the World Ozone and Ultraviolet Radiation Data Centre for de Bilt, the Netherlands,
are also compared to the different satellite estimates. Promising agreement is found for the two different
types of instrument for the SO2 columns with linear regression coefficients ranging around from 0.64 when
comparing the different instruments and 0.85 when comparing the two different IASI algorithms. The agreement
for the plume height is lower, possibly due to the major differences between the height retrieval part of the
GOME2 and IASI algorithms. The comparisons with the Brewer groundbased
station in de Bilt, The Netherlands
show good qualitative agreement for the peak of the event however stronger eruptive signals are required
for a longer quantitative comparison.